Fabian Cancellara is currently present at the Tour de Suisse in order to find fitness rather than results, after fracturing a vertebra in a serious crash during the E3 Harelbeke race late in March. The Trek Factory Racing rider, who is suffering a virus hurting his training, explained according to Swiss television he is really satisfied with his come back.

"At first I was just happy to ride my bike again but after you’ve trained, trained and trained, you need to race. That’s why I decided to race in Norway. Racing gave me those good feeling and quality work that you don’t get in training or even when motor pacing. Things like the first hour of a race, when the break is trying to go away and you’re trying to control the attacks, you can’t recreate those efforts in training. It’s not the season I’d hoped for because, after missing the Classics, there’s a big hole. I’m riding the Tour de Suisse with conviction but I got ill before the race and that cut into my training and was a mental blow too. I’ve had to take antibiotics and so everything changed. As a result, I’m going to take whatever comes and we’ll see what happens", Spartacus said.

As he said, since 2012, he has a bit less luck. "Lots of riders have problems every year or every few years. Until 2012 I hadn’t had any major problems and then it happened. But I’ve never thought if it was down to good or bad things because if you start thinking about things, is time to call it quit."

In February, he had announced a possible retirement after the 2016 season. "I’ve two or three things in mind that I’d like to achieve but I’ve been giving it 100% and been in the thick of the action at this level since 2006. I’m motivated and if I think of the things I still haven’t achieved, I could race until I was 40. But I don’t want to race until I’m 40. Cycling is my life but there’s a life after cycling too. I’ve got a family and lots of other things in my mind I’d like to think about."